Comerica Park's Singing Hotdog Man fired by his employers

Charley Marcuse, the Berkley High graduate and Oakland County native, has been belting out "Hooooooooooooot Doooooooooooooogs" opera-style since Tiger Stadium's final season in 1999, announced on Twitter Friday he'd been fired.

"After 15 years the @tigers finally got what they've always wanted: I was fired by @delawarenorth #Sportservice this morning," he tweeted just before 5 p.m. on Friday, adding the hashtag "#LongLiveMustard."

"Since 1999, the final season played at Tiger Stadium, I have been selling hot dogs at Detroit Tigers games. What started as a part-time summer job quickly turned into a passion. For 15 years I have tried to provide a unique, engaging, and fun experience for everyone. The vast majority of feedback and interactions have always been positive. Fans constantly tell me that I have added to their enjoyment of the ballgame. The Detroit Tigers and Sportservice, a Delaware North Company, see it differently. After so many years I am very sorry to see this day come," Marcuse said in a statement to The Oakland Press.

"I am deeply thankful to the fans for their loyalty and support. It has been an amazing experience serving you for the past fifteen years. All of you are the reason I keep coming back. I hope to have the opportunity to serve you again in the future."

The leather-lunged vendor served hot dogs in the section right behind home plate, but could be heard around the ballpark with his trademark sales pitch, something he once called "a fine line between yelling, yodeling and singing."

His singing -- developed after a Three Tenors concert at Tigers Stadium -- did not always meet with universal acclaim.

"To this day, Charley's singing is severely restricted -- even though fans would like to hear him sing more often," it says on the website, CharleysFoods.com, where he hawks his own "Charley's Ballpark Mustard."

In 2004, the Tigers banned him from singing, but backlash from fans brought about a compromise, wherein Marcuse was allowed to sing once each night during what was then the team's second-inning Hot Dog Row promotion.

Six years later, he was limited to singing only after the Tigers had finished batting, and before the start of the next inning.

"It's been agreed to he's not going to do it when the Tigers are batting. We don't need to distract the home team," said Jeff Behr, now the district manager for Delaware North, but then the general manager of its Sportservice division in Detroit when he gave a 2010 interview to Sports Media Exchange's James Briggs.

"Have we told him to shut it down? No. He just has to realize fans are here to see the game. ... Obviously fans are here to see the players, not to be entertained by us."

That would be where their viewpoints diverged.

Marcuse, who also works as a sales and buying assistant at the Birmingham clothier? the Claymore Shop, where he started in high school, would beg to differ, pointing out that he was part of the show.

Matthew B. Mowery covers the Tigers for Digital First Media. Read his "Out of Left Field" blog at opoutofleftfield.blogspot.com.

About the Author

Detroit Tigers beat writer for The Oakland Press in Pontiac, Michigan. Mowery has spent 19 years covering sports, from preps to pros. He’s been honored with more than 25 awards for writing. Reach the author at matt.mowery@oakpress.com
or follow Matthew B. on Twitter: @MatthewBMowery.